Another child free vs having a baby thread

[Kiwiinparis]

I’ve noticed there have been a couple of threads lately about whether or not to remain child free. I’m in exactly the same boat and really unsure with either decision and need some perspective please!

A little bit of background - 27, DH is 28. We’ve been sitting on the fence the last couple of years about what we want to do, and I feel like I change my mind weekly on this.

Close friends and family are starting their own families now, and I love being involved with their pregnancies/babies. I find the pregnancy stage fascinating, and do think babies/toddlers are very cute. I often find myself daydreaming about one day when I can be pregnant and how We would tell my in laws and parents, how we would decorate the nursery and what names we like.

On the flip side having no experience with my own baby, it’s hard to comprehend exactly how difficult bringing up a child is, and if I would be any good at it. Childbirth also scares me, as does loosing some of my freedom and a potential breakdown of my relationship as so many posters have bought up on other threads. We do have a strong marriage but my DH does not do well on lack of sleep and I would by lying if I said I wasn’t worried about how he would cope with a newborn. He is also still unsure and wants to wait a couple of years which I completely agree with.

I just wonder for all of you out there, was there something that just clicked at a point in your life where you knew 100% that you wanted a baby, or the opposite? I know I’m leaning towards having (just) one at this stage but I’m able to envision a child free life and everything we would be able to achieve just us two and that also brings me happiness.

I've never cared about babies or been broody, but always wanted to have a family, if that makes sense. We were very lucky, that we didn't try, just stopped trying to prevent it, and got pregnant, and now have dd (almost 7) abs ds (5).

The baby stage is hard, lack of sleep sucks, but I love our family and wouldn't change it for the world. I would try and take your focus away from "babies" and think about long term, if you want to have children and a family that is more than you and dh

Without wanting to derail, what on earth is the difference between "trying" and "not trying to prevent" a pregnancy? For me that's exactly the same thing. If you're having unprotected sex and hoping a child will be the result, then you are trying, surely?

But anyway, me and DH are about the same age as you and your partner OP. We've been together since we were 18 and both knew by the age of 21ish that we wanted to be parents in the not too distant future but equally not right then either. We had DD in our mid-twenties, she's 2 and we have started TTC a second recently. I can't give you any other explanation other than we just both wanted to and we waited until a time when we both want d to have a child and were in a financial and practical position to have one (and repeated the process for number 2, as really we would have both have liked to have had them by now, but co circumstances dictated otherwise). I wouldn't have tried for a baby with DH if we were unmarried though, primarily for financial reasons, as I earn half what he does.

Why don’t you put it on ice for 3 to 5 years and think again then. You have a bit of time.

Thank you for your perspectives! We are currently saving for our first house (hopefully will have one by next Christmas!) and then we have one more overseas trip in the next few years that we both want to save towards. So it wouldn’t be for a few years, but I’m just so hoping that in that time something clicks inside to tell me either way! Being on the fence is the hardest - I wish I was 100% on either side, at least then I would know for certain what I wanted!

Financially we will be able to afford one - I earn quite a bit more than DH and that’s projected to go up over the next few years as well

@partyatthepalace yeah that’s what we have talked about doing, but I still can’t help myself thinking about what to do 😂

It’ll click in the years to come. You’re still very young. Good luck

I think the difference between trying and not preventing is subtle, but to me not preventing is just stopping contraception and being happy if you happen to become pregnant while trying would imply tracking, timing doing the deed and being a bit more proactive.

I had DS because I was running out of time and felt it was becoming a bit now or never, to be honest! Babyhood has been really hard but I never really pictured having a baby - I always daydreamed about having a child. The more interactive he gets the better it becomes

I was ambivalent at your age, I was enjoying our life, travelling, socialising, progressing at work etc, I had come to terms with not having children as I was diagnosed with a condition at 18 that I had been told would make conception very difficult. After we got married (32) I came off the pill, but that was it, no working out cycles, temperature testing, apps , ovulation sticks, regular pregnancy testing etc, just came off the pill and what would be would be. I was at a point in my life where if it happened I was ok with my life being disrupted and a child taking centre stage and if it didn't we had other plans. I wasn't the young woman who dreamed of babies and being mummy etc. Now DS is here I'm very very glad, it's brought out some of my calmer more patient characteristics, and I'm ok to let go of the holiday home abroad in the next 5 years plan! I love DS completely and can't imagine my life without him now, but if it hadn't happened for us I would've been ok too because I never had that all consuming urge. Give it a couple of years at least, enjoy yourself in the mean time and revisit at a later date.

Baby lasts for 1 to 2 years. Then they become kids for a few years. Then you get a teenager. Then a young adult. It makes very little sense to ask "do I want a baby"..

As pp said it's about wanting a family, and that's for better or worse since you can't control the personality or medical conditions your DC may have.

Personally I thought about being 60 years old with no kids and all my friends and family starting to get ill and die. And I thought, nope, I'll give TTC a go..

I really don't understand these posts, at all. If you are having to ask strangers on the internet if you should have a baby, you shouldn't have a baby. And if you don't know if you want one, you don't want one.

It's not a glass of wine, its a human life. If you're not capable of deciding without internet randoms, you're not capable of raising a child now.4

@Apollo3 I am not asking for strangers to decide whether or not we are having a baby. I’m asking if there was something that clicked where they knew 100% if they wanted one or not. If you read my OP you’ll see that

No, i never 100% knew I wanted one, it just seemed like it would be fun and lovely to have a little person who loves you more than anything. We didn't 'try'; just decided to stop using contraception and see what happened. I fell pregnant two weeks later. Brilliant decision! No regrets. The difficult bits are hard, and yes the lack of sleep is awful, but that's completely separate to how adorable and funny and loving they are. Like how packing to go on holiday can be a bit of a bore but it's totally worth it for the amazing holiday

Stopping contraception is trying for a baby

Things like decorating a nursery and choosing names are all exciting and novel but make up about 0.2% of your parenting journey. Don’t think about all of that, or choosing baby clothes. Don’t even think about childbirth - over very quickly in the grand scheme of things and something that literally billions of women have done over the course of human history so again not a big part of the process. It would come out somehow

The baby years are fairly short but also quite tough so you do need to consider how you would divide up responsibilities and share the sleepless nights and general leg work that comes with young children AND how you would organise your finances during maternity leave. This is the perhaps the most important thing to discuss before having a baby - so many threads on here where the OP is describing how her DH is basically a lazy shit and expects her to do all the parenting and all the night wakes, and she wants to go back to work but turns out that DH expected her to be a SAHM, or vice versa, and I think CHRIST why do people not discuss this stuff before having a baby?! You need to get on the same page about big stuff like that. It doesn’t matter if your nursery is yellow or grey, but people get divorced about this sort of stuff in the early years.

(By this sort of stuff I mean money and responsibilities and sharing the load of parenting!)

First look beyond baby. I always wanted children. And so did my husband. Before we were engaged we talked about names for our imaginary kids. We both worked with children/young people.
I would focus on your home situation and readdress ih a year or two.

@Brobbles thank you :) we have discussed all of this, and that’s another reason pro waiting. Where we live we get 8 months of a combination of full and half pay leave, and another 4 unpaid. We would split that so I do the first 6 months and he does the second 6 months. As we would only have one if we have any kids, we want to have time to save $ so we can afford to do this and both get time to spend with/raise our child

Being a stay at home mum is 100% not for me. I love my career and couldn’t imagine giving it up for good, and my DH doesn’t want me to either

I'm child free age 35. I've never wanted children. But one thing I would say is I don't really get the whole thing with not understanding how hard it will be. Is it really so hard to imagine a little person needing everything from you. Rarely getting a rest. Arguing over who did what.

Honesty I find it astounding when people make this huge decision to bring a life into the world. Yest say no one told me how hard it was. Yet women on here and irl are constantly saying how hard it is.

My point is I think it is very very hard and its something you have to want and be prepared for the impact on your life.

It’s good you’ve discussed maternity pay but I mean afterwards too. Would you go back to work full or part time? If you’re part time then would you combine all your money so that you have the same amount of personal spending money or would it be separate and if so how would he make sure you’re not financially disadvantaged by going part time to look after your child? Confirm that childcare bills would be a joint responsibility and not just yours. Etc etc. It does largely depend on whether all your money is currently combined/family money or if it’s separate. Lots of married people seem to have separate finances before children, even if they have bought a house together, they just pay a share of their wages into a joint account for bills and mortgage or some people do “he pays utilities I pay for food” or something. This then causes issues when kids arrive, with women often being expected to still contribute the same amount despite being on maternity pay, or the DH expecting the woman to pay for all the baby things etc. It’s not always like this and it sounds like I’m giving men a tough time here but it seems to happen a lot, and also women need to take more responsibility and ensure they discuss all this stuff before going on maternity leave.

I think it's tattoo on the face territory. Don't do it unless you are absolutely certain it's the right choice.

@Brobbles all really good things to think about! Our money has been joint ever since we got married, so it would all come out of the same pool. Good point though about having conversations about our discretionary spending! I would go back full time, but if we could afford it I wouldn’t be against DH going down to PT hours to look after our kid. It’s just whether we could afford it once we take on a mortgage (house prices are astronomical in our country)

Without wanting to derail, what on earth is the difference between "trying" and "not trying to prevent" a pregnancy?

Not trying to prevent: stopping using contraception.

Trying: tracking ovulation, having sex every 48 hours during the first two week of your cycle, knowing exactly when you’re due and feeling nervous a day or so before.

We stopped using contraception for a year before actively “trying”. And boy did it take some trying.

@plumpootle as someone who has tattoos that they do regret, totally get this haha

I'm childfree in my (early) 40s and I knew since
forever that maternity wasn't for me. I had never been on the fence or whatsoever.
It's like a biological urge to NOT have kids.